


5 Times Penny Totally Wasn't A Potterhead (And One Time She Admitted It)

by VigilantSycamore



Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: Everyone Else I Tagged Actually Appears Though, F/M, Humor, Penny is a Potterhead, Raj and Howard are Only Mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2018-12-25 10:33:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12034074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VigilantSycamore/pseuds/VigilantSycamore
Summary: Just a fic exploring my headcanon that Penny is actually a Harry Potter nerd.





	1. Chapter 1

Penny was checking the featured YouTube videos when she saw a title that caught her eye. “’ _Accio Deathly Hallows’_?” She thought. “This might be interesting.” So she clicked the link.

“Who’s John? And what does this guy mean by ‘the green hair thing’?” Penny was confused, but she _was_ interested in hearing the song.

“Hey, this is actually pretty good.” Penny started humming the tune as the song played.

“Oh please,” she thought. “None of those things are going to happen. There’s no way JK Rowling would kill off Hermione _or_ Hedwig, and Harry being a Horcrux would be ridiculous.” Little did she know, when she’d read the book on Saturday she’d cry at Hedwig’s death and go wide-eyed in shock over the revelation that Harry was in fact a Horcrux.

Penny listened to the song until it’s end. Once the video was over, she decided she should check out this guy - and John’s, whoever that is - YouTube channel. Their videos might be interesting if they’re all like this.

Sheldon was knocking at the door. Penny waited for him to finish his trademark knock before opening the door.

“What is it this time?”

“Penny, were you playing music in here?”

“Uh…” Why are you hesitating, her brain yelled at her, it’s not like he’s going to judge you! But Penny was used to nobody wanting to hear about how much she liked Harry Potter. “No, I was just watching some cat videos on YouTube.”

“Oh,” Sheldon seemed to accept her explanation. “Well, they were certainly musical.”

“Thanks.”

“It wasn’t a compliment: put some headphones on! I could hear it all the way out in the hallway, it’s distracting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somehow, Penny became a Nerdfighter too while I was writing this.  
> Originally, I was going to have Kurt appear in this chapter - then I realized that Hank made Accio Deathly Hallows the year AFTER Big Bang Theory started, so I didn't have to do that. Yay!


	2. Chapter 2

“You’ve never read Harry Potter?”

“Well, yeah,” Leonard said with a shrug. “I don’t know why, but somehow I just didn’t even think about reading them.”

Penny was aghast. “Oh my god, you have _got_ to read them. I remember when I read the first book, I totally freaked when Quirrel -” Penny paused. “Spoilers.”

“Wow, seems you really like Harry Potter.” Leonard hadn’t expected Penny to be that excited about ‘nerd stuff’.

“What? No!” Penny’s voice went high-pitched for a few seconds. “I just think the books are good and you should read them.”

Leonard thought for a second. He hadn’t really been interested in the books, but if it was important to Penny that he read them… “Alright. I’ll do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, some of these chapters are gonna be short.  
> And this does make sense within this headcanon: if Penny is a Potterhead, then since Leonard took so long to read the books she might have given him the idea to read it.


	3. Chapter 3

Penny was preparing herself a Pop-Tart for breakfast, and decided she might as well sing. She’d downloaded _This Machine Pwns N00bs_ on iTunes and she knew exactly what song she was in the mood for. She put the  earbuds in her ears and pressed play. She didn’t notice Sheldon coming out of his bedroom while she sang along to the song.

“ _This isn’t Hogwarts, this is a concrete box/And the pictures on the wall are never gonna talk!_ ”

“Penny.”

“ _And the teachers don’t care the kids don’t try/And the closest thing to magic are the fluorescent lights!_ ”

“Penny.”

“ _And they don't put you in Hufflepuff if you're not cool/Instead they sort you in the parking lot after school_ ”

“Penny.”

“ _And I think if I looked into the Mirror of Erised/I'd be wearing wizard robes with gold and red!”_ Penny turned around as she sang the last lines of the chorus and her eyes went wide once she realized her friend had been there for at least fifteen seconds, maybe the whole chorus. “Sheldon!”

“Were you just listening to a song comparing the fantastical escapism of Hogwarts to the mediocrity of our non-magical American education system?”

“No. Yes. Maybe.”

“Only one of those can be the answer.”

“Really? Because if I answer ‘maybe’ then that means that the other two are valid answers too.”

“Touché.” It seemed like Sheldon was going to forget his question, but Penny knew that even if he did, it would just come back to haunt him - and therefore her and probably Leonard too - in the middle of the night. So she answered it.

“Yes, I was listening to a song about _Harry Potter_.”

“Good choice, for a Slytherin.” Sheldon got himself some cereal, scoffed at her for eating Pop Tarts for breakfast, sat down in his spot and started watching _Doctor Who_.

“… Why am I a Slytherin?”


	4. Chapter 4

Penny was busy watching the video for _Open Letter to the Wizards_. Hank had a lot of good points she hadn’t considered. (Although 7 Galleons isn’t actually that cheap, it’s about 80 dollars). Then there were three knocks on the door.

“Penny.”

Penny clicked pause and minimised the window. There were another three knocks.

“Penny.”

Penny made her way to the door and waited. The last three knocks came.

“Penny.”

She opened the door and greeted Sheldon with a “sup?”

“Sup? Penny, I’ve discovered a problem with Back to the Future part 2, can you help me solve it?”

Oh boy. “Why don’t you ask one of the guys, or Amy?”

“Leonard told me to - and I quote - ‘buzz off’, Raj is drunk, Amy’s not interested, and I don’t want to think about what Howard is doing, but he’s with Bernadette.”

“Fine,” sighed Penny, stepping aside so Sheldon could come in. When she saw him staring at her in confusion, he gestured for him to enter. “So what’s the problem?” she asked once Sheldon was inside.

“In the second movie, Marty and Doc travel to the future to stop Marty’s future son from being arrested. Now, Marty buys a sports almanac with the results of every sports game from 1955 to 2015. Doc gets understandably upset and tells him he didn’t build the time machine to place accurate bets on sporting events, which is less understandable - although, travelling through time might cause a butterfly effect and therefore change the outcome _of_ the event -”

“Sweetie,” Penny interrupted. “I saw the movie with you when you marathoned the series. Remember?”

“Oh.” Sheldon looked embarrassed. “Which time?”

“ _The time when you talked over more than half of each movie!_ ”

“I asked ‘which time’ Penny. The expected response to that question is to specify, which requires narrowing _down_ the range of occurrences.”

“Okay, just get to the point! What’s the problem with the movie?”

“Very well.” Sheldon took a deep breath. “When the movie revisits the dance from the original movie and the Marty from that movie is playing Johnny B Goode, Biff’s friends are preparing to attack _that_ Marty, but are stopped by the Marty from the second movie dropping a sandbag on them. The problem is that, had the second Marty not gone back to 1955, he wouldn’t have been able to stop Biff’s friends from attacking the original Marty, which would have meant that Marty’s parents wouldn’t have gotten together, erasing Marty from history. Which just leads back to the time paradox in the first movie, since if Marty had never existed he wouldn’t have arrived in 1955 and caused his parents to not end up together, erasing him from existence.”

“Okay, sweetie, I’m going to stop you right there. Maybe the old Biff or the second Marty and Doc arriving in 1955 led to Biff’s friends being able to sneak backstage somehow? And that paradox in the first movie… it’s like how in _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_ Harry was able to save his past self from the Dementors because he’d been saved by himself from the Dementors. Because Marty prevented his parents from meeting the way they did, he became the reason they got together and the paradox never happened because he was never erased.” Penny paused. Had she just referenced _Harry Potter_ … to Sheldon?

Sheldon didn’t seem to notice. His face did light up, however. “Thanks Penny. I knew you’d help.”

As soon as he left, Penny got back to watching the video.


	5. Chapter 5

“So, I’ve realised something that’s… kinda horrifying,” Penny said.

“What did Howie tell you?” asked Bernadette.

“No, not about that. It’s…” Penny wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about discussing her secret obsession with other people, but she had to get this off her chest. “You know how in the _Harry Potter_ books the talk about the wand choosing the wizard and how in book seven Hermione doesn’t believe that because it would mean that the wands are intelligent beings?”

“Not really bestie, but go on,” Amy smiled.

“Okay, so if that’s actually true - which I’m pretty sure it is - Hermione’s right about the implications of that. If the wands choose the wizards, then they’re intelligent beings and that means that in _Chamber of Secrets_ , an intelligent being was snapped in half, taped back together - without anything resembling surgery - and forced to do work despite obviously being unable to!”

“That _is_ horrifying,” the other two girls chorused. Then Amy questioned how one would operate on wood and Penny and Bernadette both sniggered.

“Wait,” Bernadette said while Amy tried to get them to explain what was so funny. “Why were you thinking about _Harry Potter_?”

“No reason,” Penny lied.


	6. Chapter 6

One night, when they were lying awake in bed, Penny asked Leonard a question. “Hey, Leonard? I was thinking, LeakyCon’s going to be in California in October and you like conventions like that… maybe we could go?”

Leonard considered this. “Well, it’s a great opportunity for some cosplay. Plus, you like the book’s so you’re probably going to have fun too.”

Leonard had known she liked the _Harry Potter_ books for a while. Aside from her family, he was the first person she’d… she couldn’t exactly call it ‘coming out’, could she? The first person she’d _confessed_ her obsession with the book series to. Well, she had just finished a rant about how the movies’ portrayal of Ginny got really inaccurate in the later movies, so it wasn’t like she could pretend she wasn’t a Potterhead at all. But she was glad when Leonard understood that she didn’t want to make a big thing out of it and agreed to keep her secret until she was ready to tell more people.

She smiled. “Love you, babe.”

“I love you too.”


End file.
